Sunrise Sunset
by Ellie Slaughter
Summary: So, he couldn't change a diaper or calm his weeping son.


Author's Note: Hello. :) This is my first Naruto fanfic as I normally write for other fandoms, but I thought I would try something different. So, I hope you enjoy.

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><p>Sunrise Sunset<p>

_"Stop. Your heartbeat will fall and I, will cry until you wake up."_

_We Are Trees_

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><p>He sat there in the cherry oak wooden rocking chair rubbing his aching temples. He could feel the never ending migraine throbbing against his head. The child's cries across from him only making it worse. He looked towards the child sitting in the crib, crying ruthlessly; cheeks turning red and tears bravely falling down his plump rosy cheeks. He wanted nothing for the baby to shut up so he could get at least ten minutes of a decent rest. However, it seemed the eleven month old baby had other plans.<p>

He glared mercifully at the child, silently willing it to shut up already. The baby paid no heed. He continued to cry. Sighing, he raised from the rocking chair and felt a few bones crack from sitting down thirty minutes too long, and proceeded to the wailing tiny human being in the cherry oak wooden crib to accent with the color scheme of his dark blue and cherry oak nursery. Dragging his feet over to the bed across from him, he peered down at the young boy. Silently, wondering why he was still crying at five in the morning. Glaring at the tot, he scooped him up in his broad arms and held him out at arms length.

He had a glimmer of hope, that somehow, if he glared at the baby in his arms long enough, he will render him silent like his glare has done to so many other people in the world. His musings were cut short when the child's wails never faltered. He sighed miserably.

"What is your problem?" He asked the tear stained baby boy as if he understood a word he was saying, he continued on, "can you just be quiet?" It was a rhetorical question, he knew, but he couldn't stop himself from questioning aloud. He tried everything in the book to soothe the weeping whippersnapper; melancholy lullabies for his virgin ears, soft colored pastel night lights for his premature eyes. All with no avail.

His glare intensified with growing irritation. Only if his wife saw him now, she would scold him for a lifetime. Said man watched at his son before him, glare still in tack, cursing his wife for leaving him at home all alone. He didn't know anything about babies. He could barely take care of himself, not like he ever had to. Inwardly, he sighed. And rocked the wailing bundle of joy in his arms. Not knowing what else to do.

He stared right at the baby in his arms and to his mild surprise, the baby stopped, sniffled, and stared right back at him with the same pearl white eyes as his own with growing curiosity at the grown, tired young man in front of him. Inside, he couldn't contain his happiness even if on the outside he was glaring at the child in his arms. It stopped; the crying finally stopped. He arched one perfectly obstructed eyebrow and the child cocked his head to the side. Baffled, the older man was rendered speechless, not that he ever really spoke much.

He motioned to place him back into his crib, but the crying began again. Hastily, he pulled him closer to him, cradling him in his chest. Cooing softly to him, humming a lullaby that he recalled Tenten singing to him nights prior. Rocking him softly, the cries intensified and reached a new octave. Grunting, he stared at his son wondering why he was being so stubborn.

Looking up at his father with big round eyes reaching for the mans hair, he sniffled, his cries slowing, he made a gurgling noise and smiled a toothless grin. Grasping the mans long chestnut brown locks, he put the strands in his mouth, and chewed on the hair happily. Slightly disgusted and awe struck, he watched as the lids of the eleven month old droop down close and reopen again. Slowly walking backwards to the rocking chair, fearing that if he turned around or moved too fast, the child would cry again. Feeling the coolness of the wood on his calves, he slowly sat down in the rocking chair, still cradling the now quiet boy in his arms. Sighing in the midst of chewing his father's hair, he snuggled closer into the crook of his father's chest and elbow. Not quite as soft as his mother's, but durable all the same.

Scrutinizing the scene before him, he gazed as his young son drifted off into the Land of the Nod, breathing perfectly even, and rosy cheeks still tear stained. He brushed his slender thumb over the tear stains, ridding his young face from the ugly traces. He softly ruffled the brown tussled locks only the way a proud father would of his son and slowly allowed a smile to grace its presence on his usually stoic face.

She knew that she wasn't acknowledged when she reached the doorway and her husband didn't speak or even give a glance at her. She almost felt like an intruder in such a moment like this. Almost as if she was an alien in a world only big enough for her pearled eyed husband and their son. Leaning nonchalantly on the door way, admiring the scene before her; Neji staring so intently at the youngest member of their small family with the slightest smile on his face that he reserved for her and their son and for them alone, his fingers running through his soft brown hair, and said man's hair held captive in the mouth of a eleven month old. Not wanting to ruin the moment between the two, she smiled wistfully and turned on her heel to go retire for the night.

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><p><em>"To the things that make me numb, pitiful, I'm the slave of my eyes."<em>

_Intohimo_

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><p>Author's Note: I hope you like it, although I don't really like the way that I ended it. It could have been better, but this was inspired by me when I was a little girl, my mom said I had to chew on her hair or else I couldn't sleep. Oh, wells.<p>

I hope you enjoyed :) !


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